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Kiwiwomble

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https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby...nies-referee-bias-despite-alarming-statistics

For matches in South Africa, against non South African opposition, home sides have earned 154 more penalties than their overseas opponents across 42 games. This is in stark contrast to Australian referees in Australia (11 more penalties to the home side) and New Zealand referees in New Zealand (10 more to the away side).

In the last three seasons there have been 105 matches where a referee has taken the whistle in charge of a match between their country of birth and an overseas side. Overall the home team received an average of 1.56 more penalties per game.

However, when broken down by nationality, South African referees awarded 3.67 more penalties to the home side, while Argentinian referees, from only two fixtures, 4.5 more per match.

By comparison, Australian referees gave 0.5 more penalties on average each game to the home side and Kiwi officials awarded 0.26 fewer penalties per game to New Zealand sides.

That doesn't sound very good....
 
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This coming from the nation that gave us Stuart Dickenson. The same country that has been producing less and less top quality referees for the past few seasons and have even gone so far as to get South African Referees to be registered under the RA to officiate matches in SA, prime example being Rasta Ratshivenge.

Sure our referees aren't perfect, and we have a knack of complaining about referees, even our own, so much so that a guy like Egon Seconds is not allowed to officiate this year.

But people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones...
 
so you want us to be the BEST rugby team in the world and have the BEST ref's as well
What is left for you guys?
 
while Argentinian referees, from only two fixtures, 4.5 more per match.
yeah... like if you flip a coin, 3 out of 5 times you'll get the same result, but if you do it a hundred times you'll get closer to 0.50
basic statistics people
 
yeah... like if you flip a coin, 3 out of 5 times you'll get the same result, but if you do it a hundred times you'll get closer to 0.50
basic statistics people
thats fair enough...not sure the other countries refs can claim the same defense
 
Obviously a bit of a worry, and there is definitely a chance South African refs are showing an unconscious bias (I don't think SA refs are cheating on purpose).

That said I'd need the statistics to be verified, I couldn't find a breakdown or a source other than a tweet from Green and Gold Rugby which is an Australian website.

Questions like, what was the sample size and why? How did it compare to non-home referees rate at Newlands or Buenos Aires etc? What exactly counts as a home ref? What kind of spread was there in terms of variance etc.
Statistics are too broad to make a conclusion yet.

That said I think it's OK to acknowledge that there might be a problem.
 
Obviously a bit of a worry, and there is definitely a chance South African refs are showing an unconscious bias (I don't think SA refs are cheating on purpose).

That said I'd need the statistics to be verified, I couldn't find a breakdown or a source other than a tweet from Green and Gold Rugby which is an Australian website.

Questions like, what was the sample size and why? How did it compare to non-home referees rate at Newlands or Buenos Aires etc? What exactly counts as a home ref? What kind of spread was there in terms of variance etc.
Statistics are too broad to make a conclusion yet.

That said I think it's OK to acknowledge that there might be a problem.
The article says the stats are from the sanzaar website and is a based of all super games
 
The article says the stats are from the sanzaar website and is a based of all super games
I think you've misread it mate:

Early in the article:
"Sanzaar chief executive Andy Marinos has poured cold water on complaints about the standard of refereeing in Super Rugby, saying statistics that show South African officials appearing to favour sides from their own country need to be "validated"."

Then later:
"Yet recent figures published by rugby website Green and Gold Rugby from 2017-2019 highlight some alarming trends."

So the above link goes to an opinion piece and it states:
"According to the numbers crunched by a Green and Gold Rugby contributor, latest trends in this area are somewhat alarming and revel a major advantage in terms of penalties awarded to South African teams against overseas opposition when refereed by South African referees."


So basically a contributer to the Aussie website Green and Gold Rugby did the analysis, whatever that means (that's vague enough that it might even just be a user of the forum).

That doesn't invalidate the stats, but it does require further investigation in my opinion.
 
The article in the OP is making a few strong assumptions. It assumes, or at the very least strongly hints, that the correlation is explained by the ref's bias. What if, at least part of it, is explained by home ground (genuine) advantage that makes opposition commit more mistakes?

I mean, as a Jaguares supporter, given equally strong opposition (otherwise the exercise is futile), i'd rather play in Auckland or Sydney than in Joburg or Pretoria.
 
I think you've misread it mate:

Early in the article:
"Sanzaar chief executive Andy Marinos has poured cold water on complaints about the standard of refereeing in Super Rugby, saying statistics that show South African officials appearing to favour sides from their own country need to be "validated"."

Then later:
"Yet recent figures published by rugby website Green and Gold Rugby from 2017-2019 highlight some alarming trends."

So the above link goes to an opinion piece and it states:
"According to the numbers crunched by a Green and Gold Rugby contributor, latest trends in this area are somewhat alarming and revel a major advantage in terms of penalties awarded to South African teams against overseas opposition when refereed by South African referees."


So basically a contributer to the Aussie website Green and Gold Rugby did the analysis, whatever that means (that's vague enough that it might even just be a user of the forum).

That doesn't invalidate the stats, but it does require further investigation in my opinion.

"across 246 matches pulled from Super Rugby's official website"

So not ALL matches but still claiming they are from SANZAAR
 
For these stats to have any real impact or perspective, there has to be an in depth research on a few things.

The generalisation they are making, is again too over the top to take it at face value.

I think they will have to look at each and every penalty, and check if it was correct or not. Then they also need to check if there were patterns emanating from the game, like were there repeated infringements, was the team that gave away the penalties playing a negative game plan and other factors such as professional fouls and so on.

Then they also need to check which referee was in charge? Some refs are a bit more strict than others, and some blow things more regularly than others.

I also think we need to put an asterisk behind the matches Egon Seconds was in charge of, as he has been reprimanded, and it's quite clear and obvious that he is indeed bias. And us South Africans have been the most vocal about this.

I wonder however, if the NH referees were more regular features in Super Rugby, if this penalty counts would have been even more, and our referees being more exposed to NH rugby than the other SR refs is a contributing factor to the high penalty count because of their involvement with the Pro14
 
The most interesting piece of information is actually missing. How do these statistics compare to those of two South African teams playing against each other?
 
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